Monday, February 14, 2011

Alphabet Soup - L is for Like

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope to be celebrating with my sweetie tonight over a scrumptious dinner of bison steak and raw oysters! And maybe some baked pear stuffed crepes drizzled with the tiniest amount of melted dark chocolate.

edited in Picnik

And on this day dedicated to Love, I want to talk about Like.

I don't think I learned to fully Love until I better understood Like.

I had all the classic textbook behaviours and responses. Poor boundaries. Letting people in too easily. Sharing my story and my space, too soon. Accepting less than I deserved. Putting their needs before mine. Appeasing. Leaving behind a piece of myself each time I finally walked away.

How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes(M&S 1)

Whenever I met someone new, I fell in Love, with the idea. Immediately. I saw everything I wanted, to see. I was blinded.

And so began the dance, the pitch, the performance. Marketing myself, driven by the fear of losing the opportunity.

If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything.

So I started to take care of me. Started to get to know, me. I took myself away for my birthday - stayed at a B&B with a hot tub, took myself out for dinner and bought myself a ring. Because I was beginning to Like me.

And I made lists. Detailed lists of what I wanted. Which helped me become more Discerning. Still, I was giving too many chances. Stuck on the possibility. Wanting to prove myself right.

Then, finally, I turned that corner. Realized that I would rather assume guilt, until innocence was proven. Or, rather, Unknown until proven Known. Love was allowed to rest on the shelf, until Like had entered the room.

And chances were not given. It was freeing, to decide "I Don't Like".

And so I will be foundWith my stake stuck in the groundMarking the territory of this newly impassioned soul

You have neither reason nor rhymeWith which to take this soul that is so rightfully mine (M&S 2)

That's when I met the Love of my Life. In the most common of places. I took my time deciding if I truly Liked him. All of him. And he was busy teaching me about Love.

Now I have both, Like and Love. I don't think I could have had one without the other.

And when I started to realize that I truly Liked me, our Love blossomed even more.